I'm back…!

Aaron Ramsey, our new 17 year old wonderkid has talked about having a good pre-season and then getting ready for the start of the season. He says he'd like to play against West Brom in our opening game of the season, whether or not that's too early, I don't know, but we'll find out a bit more about the lad in pre-season. Starting of course with Barnet vs Arsenal at Underhill on Saturday, July 19, 2008.

“I will try my best to get in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season against West Brom. I am joining one of the biggest clubs in the world, one which always gives young players an opportunity at the highest level. I am going to work my hardest to be part of future successes there.”

PHW (The big daddy, Peter Hill Wood) has also spoke about two of our stars, Adebayor and Hleb saying the former is not leaving and has a long contract but admitted Hleb wants to go and will be off.

“We want him to stay. Adebayor still has a long time left on his contract and we have absolutely no intention of releasing him from that contract.”

“Hleb has made it clear he wants to go. I think maybe he will go.”

Something I touched on last Friday was how we would react as fans if Ade was still here next season?

Something else I spoke about a week or so ago was how we’ve historically been a selling club when it comes to a good amount of money, cite Henry, Vieira, Petit, Overmars and of course Anelka.

Of course, as always, Arsene’s been reading the blog (I wish) and followed on with something of his own…

“The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players. We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions – national and European – while having to free up – for 17 more years – an annual surplus of £24m to pay for our stadium.

“The club’s strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game.”

Whether or not Arsene actually said this is questionable as the source is the undoubtedly not so reputable News of The World… It’s not like Arsene to say something like that, as it will surely say to the world that actually, have who you want, we’ll sell and goes against his calls for consistency within the squad…

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